An oral presentation at the Shallow Defect Level Conference, Amsterdam, associated with ICDS'96
Abstract
An ab initio local density functional cluster program, AIMPRO, is used to examine shallow thermal donor defects in silicon. We find that both nitrogen--oxygen and carbon--oxygen defects can potentially be shallow thermal donors. The bonding of oxygen with interstitial nitrogen in Ni-O2i is almost `normal' but the O atoms move slightly out of their bond centred sites causing the deep donor level of Ni to become shallow. The defect has properties consistent with those experimentally observed for shallow thermal donors. We also find that a (CH)i-O2i defect has very similar electronic properties, and suggest that shallow thermal donors do not have a unique composition.
Keywords: ab initio theory, silicon, oxygen, nitrogen, carbon, hydrogen, shallow thermal donor, STD, defect.
C.E. 6.96